House of Annie

We got our salmon from (who else?) our favorite fish monger, Pat from Mission Fresh Fish. He’s the same guy who supplied us with the ahi for the Ahi Limu Poke, all the seafood for our Cioppino Hot Pot meal, and the salmon bones for our Wild Salmon Cakes. We bought the salmon on Thursday at the San Carlos Farmer’s Market . That night, I skinned the fillets, pulled out the pin bones, and salted them with some Hawaiian sea salt before putting them in the fridge.

Salting the Salmon Fillets for Lomi Lomi Salmon

On Friday night, I took the salmon fillets out of the fridge and rinsed off the salt, then patted the fillets dry. Annie cut the fillets into 1/2 inch-wide strips, then diced the salmon up. The diced salmon went back into the fridge.

Dicing Salmon for Lomi Lomi Salmon

We had purchased over 10 pounds of Roma tomatoes at the San Carlos Farmer’s Market. Since we didn’t want to carry the box around while we shopped the rest of the market, we left the box with the vendor. There must have been a mixup, because when we came home, we found our box full of less-than-ripe globe tomatoes!

Since this was early June, these tomatoes didn’t have nearly the flavor of the Romas, let alone fully ripened heirloom tomatoes from our own garden. But what could we do? I cut each tomato in half and seeded them.

Halved and Seeded Tomatoes for Lomi Lomi Salmon

The Tomato Dicing Expert

Now began the arduous task of dicing up the tomatoes. I am not as skilled with the knife as Annie is. I was cutting each halved tomato into slices, then strips and finally dice. I wasn’t getting very far when Annie came up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to dice the tomatoes.”

“You call this a dice?” She held up an irregularly shaped piece of tomato.

“Well, how can I dice this tomato so it looks uniform?”

“Why don’t you slice the tomato in half, then make strips one way and then cut perpendicular to make the dice?”

“I’m doing that but the stupid knife isn’t sharp enough and the tomato keeps slipping.”

“Oh, so it’s the knife that’s stupid, huh?”

“Well, uh…”

“Look, don’t use a sawing motion. Let the knife do the work for you. Just lay the point of the knife on the board, and cut the tomato with the back of the knife using a rocking motion.”

“A rocking motion? How…?”

“MOVE!” (slice, chop chop chop chop, chop chop chop chop) “There, see? Was that so hard? Hand me another one.”

Before I knew it, she had diced all the tomatoes as well as a red onion. She handed me back the knife so I could chop up some green onion. “By the way, a-you’re welcome!”

Diced Tomatoes and Red Onion for Lomi Lomi Salmon

(Note: I have taken creative license with the previous story. The real Annie is nothing like a “Nick Burns of the kitchen”. Love you, honey!)

After adding the chopped green onions to the tomatoes and red onions, I poured the whole pile into a large aluminum tray, then added the diced salmon. Here’s where the “lomi lomi” massage technique comes in. With both hands, I gently mixed the ingredients together until everything was well distributed. As a final touch, I squeezed some lemon juice onto the lomi lomi salmon to brighten up the flavors.

Lomi lomi salmon needs to be served chilled, so I put some ice in another aluminum tray, and put the salmon-filled tray on top of the ice.

Tray of Lomi Lomi Salmon

The lomi lomi salmon was a very popular dish at our lu’au. The saltiness of the salmon was tempered by the sweetness of the tomato. The red onion’s crunch and bite stood out against the salmon and tomatoes’ softness.

Lomi Lomi Salmon

Back in Hawai’i, the lomi lomi salmon served at lu’aus often was more tomato than salmon, and those tomatoes were usually hard and mealy. Our lomi salmon was better because it had a higher ratio of salmon to tomato. The best lomi lomi salmon recipe, though, would be if we used some of Annie’s own homegrown heirloom tomatoes instead of under-ripe globes.

Down with soulless tomatoes!

Aloha, Nate

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Links to Hawaiian Lu’au Food recipes

Huli Chicken Recipe

Kalua Pig with Cabbage Recipe

Ahi Limu Poke Recipe

Huli Chicken Recipe

Chocolate Haupia Pie Recipe

For Starters

First off, we start with sashimi-grade ahi. You can find them in higher-end markets, but we like to go to our favorite fishmonger, Pat from Mission Fresh Fish. You can find him at many Bay Area farmer’s markets. We bought our frozen ahi steaks from him at the San Carlos Farmer’s Market.

Frozen Ahi Steaks from Mission Fresh Fish

We brought the fish home and kept them frozen until the day of the lu’au. I took them out of the fridge while the steaks were still stiff. I cut the steaks into 3/4 inch-thick slabs, then cut the slabs into 3/4 inch wide strips.

Cutting Ahi Into Strips for Poke

Finally, I cubed the ahi and set it aside.

Looking for Limu

I wanted to use a specific type of limu, called ogo, for this poke. In Hawai’i, it’s easy to find it fresh in the supermarkets. Not so easy to find it here in the Bay Area. I tried calling around to various supermarkets in the South Bay (Santo, Imahara) that bring in Hawaiian products but they didn’t have fresh ogo in stock that day.

Fortunately, I was able to find another store in Cupertino that stocks Hawaiian products: Marukai on Stevens Creek Blvd. Lucky thing, this store is open to the general public, as most of their other stores are members only. They sell a “poke mix” by Noh Foods that comes with dried ogo, Hawaiian salt, and chili pepper flakes. I bought four packages.

Noh Brand Poke Mix with Dried Ogo

The recipe for Ahi Limu Poke is really easy. You just have to reconstitute the dried ogo in water for a few minutes, chop it up into bite-size bits, and mix it in with the fish, some sesame oil, and the salt and chili pepper.

Ogo and Seasonings for Ahi Poke

I used all the ogo, but ended up using only about 3 packets’ worth of salt, which was just right. Hawaiian salt (called alae) is a coarse sea salt that is very salty. Too much could ruin a dish.

After mixing, I let it chill in the fridge for the flavors to combine.

Ahi Limu Poke

It’s not everyday that one gets to enjoy fresh, sashimi-grade tuna. The combination of salt, sesame oil, seaweed, and sashimi is a winner. The crunchy ogo plays off against the soft fish, and the slight chili heat adds spark to the cool dish. Everyone enjoed our ahi limu poke, going back for seconds, thirds, and more.

For me, this dish takes me back to my home. I can imagine driving along Kamehameha Highway, past Kualoa Ranch, with Ka’a’awa Valley on the left and the azure Pacific on the right. The ocean breeze carries an intoxicatingly fresh scent of the sea. I can’t stop breathing it in… Ahhhh…

Leftovers

We actually did have some leftovers after the party was done. The next day, we decided to make some fried poke for dinner. Simply heat a non-stick pan on medium-high, add a little sesame oil in the pan, and toss the ahi poke in. Quickly brown the fish on all sides, cooking it just a couple of minutes.

Making Fried Ahi Poke

We took some salad greens, including some mizuna, from the CSA share we got from our friend J (thanks again, J!). Put the fried poke on top and then drizzle with some Shiitake & Sesame dressing from Annie’s Naturals. Excellent meal!

Fried Poke Salad

Aloha, Nate

This post was entered into the June 22 edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, managed by Haalo and hosted by Erbe in Cucina - Cooking with Herbs

Links to Hawaiian Lu’au Food recipes

"Huli Chicken" recipe

Kalua Pig with Cabbage Recipe

Lomi Lomi Salmon Recipe

Huli Chicken Recipe

Chocolate Haupia Pie Recipe

The Pitch

I actually pitched this idea for an Ultimate Backyard Lu’au for the inaugural Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 back in September 2008, but Foodbuzz chose Michelle the Accidental Scientist (who we met at dinner in Hawai’i) to feature her excellent ‘Aha ‘Aina instead. So when I pitched the idea again for the May 2009 24, 24, 24, I wasn’t sure we’d be successful.

Fortunately, Foodbuzz selected us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled! Our previous “24, 24, 24” meals were smaller in comparison. The Cioppino Hot Pot dinner was only 6 adults plus our 2 kids. The Ultimate Rib Showdown fed 10 adults and 2 kids. This lu’au was a big party, with 16 adults and 16 kids!

The Preparation

With that many people coming, and many different dishes being served, we had to get started prepping early. The first thing we did was call one of our guests, Melissa (who is a great baker), to prepare the chocolate haupia pie for us. One less dish for us to worry about!

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Chocolate Haupia Pie

We have a friend who is part of a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture. Every week, they get a box of vegetables from Live Earth Farm. Since they were going on vacation, they asked us to pick up their share for a couple of weeks (thanks, J!!!). On Thursday, we picked up their share – it was a huge amount of vegetables! Right before the party started, Annie took some of the lettuce and other veggies and made a fresh green salad.

After picking up the CSA share, we went to the San Carlos Farmer’s Market to pick up some salmon and ahi from our favorite fishmonger, Pat from Mission Fresh Fish. I salted the salmon fillets that night, and Annie diced them up on Friday night. On Saturday morning we diced up the tomatoes and onions to complete the lomi salmon dish.

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Lomi Salmon

I marinated some chicken thighs and drumsticks on Friday night, using a “huli chicken” marinade. On Saturday afternoon, I fired up my Weber Smokey Mountain cooker and grilled / smoked them similar to our Smoked Shoyu Chicken recipe, except this time I left the water pan out so the chicken could get some direct flame action.

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Huli Chicken

We also made the oven kalua pig late Friday night / Saturday morning. I shredded the pork after it came out of the oven, and reserved the cooking juices. In the afternoon, we combined the pork with chopped cabbage to complete the Kalua Pig with Cabbage.

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Kalua Pig with Cabbage

Saturday morning I cut the ahi into cubes. In the afternoon, we went looking for the ogo (seaweed) for the ahi limu poke. Unfortunately, no store around here had fresh ogo, so we had to settle for dried ogo as part of a packaged poke mix from Marukai Market in Cupertino. After reconstituting the ogo in water, I chopped it up and mixed it together with the ahi and the other seasonings

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Ahi Limu Poke

By the way, we will blog all the recipes in future posts. So you’ll want to bookmark this page and come back to it to view the links to each dish.

The Pa’ina (Party)

We set the time for 5:00, but the only guests to actually arrive on-time were our ha’ole (Caucasian) friends Melissa and Patrick. Everyone else came on Hawaiian time ;-) I was a little concerned because the hot foods weren’t going to stay hot for long (the weather outside was sunny but cool).

While we waited, some of the kids entertained themselves by drawing on the patio floor with chalk.

Abigail and Brandon

Eventually, everyone did show up so I put on some Hapa in the CD player and we started dinner. Most of our guests never had Hawaiian food before, so I briefly explained each dish. At least no one had any qualms about eating raw fish.

The huli chicken was the first to run out. It was very good! I should have prepared more, but there wasn’t that much more room on the smoker anyway.

Another popular dish was the lomi salmon. People kept going back for second and third helpings. The ahi limu poke was also a winner. Even though it had some chili pepper in it, our friend Winnie (who can’t take spicy foods) couldn’t stop eating it.

The funny thing about the kalua pig dish was, we initially didn’t have enough cabbage to balance out the pork. So we had to have one of our friends bring another head of cabbage to add to it. We also used the kale that came from the Live Earth Farm CSA share. That kale brought an enjoyable, deep earthiness to the dish

Pineapples, Pudding and Pies

Even though we were quite happy with the main courses, we still had desserts to enjoy. Winnie brought a couple of pineapples filled with chunks of pineapple, strawberries and papaya.

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au: Tropical Fruit in Pineapple Bowl

Besides the aforementioned Chocolate Haupia Pie, our friend Melissa also made a Tropical Bread Pudding that everyone could not get enough of. I was fortunate that Annie saved the last bit of bread pudding for me (which I am enjoying as I write this post!). Unfortunately, she did not take pics of the baking process so I guess we will have to make the recipe again (oh, the hardships we endure… ;-) ).

Our friend Felicia (who made the Pavlova for us for the Ultimate Rib Showdown) made a Strawberry Cream Freeze pie with Oreo cookie crust. It was seriously good. I did not have a chance to take a picture before it was all gone. (Sounds like another assignment, Felicia! ;-) )

As the evening got cooler, everyone headed inside to continue the party in the warmth of the house.

Hawaiian Etiquette: Leave Your Shoes Outside

We gabbed about this and that while the kids entertained themselves with Wii Sports. The night wore on and people started packing up and leaving. I was pretty fried once the last family left.

Post Mortem

In hindsight, there are a few things I would do differently:

• start cooking the kalua pig earlier so I won’t be up so late shredding pork
• marinate more chicken and get another charcoal grill to grill them
• not eat so much so I would have enough room for dessert

I can’t thank our friends enough for coming and sharing this lu’au experience. Especially those who took the time to make desserts for us – you really took a load off our minds and made preparing for the lu’au much easier! I also must thank Foodbuzz for helping make it all happen!

As for you, dear Reader, I thank you for sticking with me on such a long post. I hope that it will encourage you to make your own backyard lu’au and bring a little Hawai’i to your neck of the woods.

Aloha, Nate

If you liked this post, won’t you bookmark it and share it with your friends on social networking sites like StumbleUpon, Facebook, or Twitter?

Links to Hawaiian Lu’au Food recipes

Kalua Pig with Cabbage Recipe

Lomi Lomi Salmon Recipe

Ahi Limu Poke Recipe

Huli Chicken Recipe

Chocolate Haupia Pie Recipe

I first came to know of salmon collars when I started visiting Pat’s booth at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market. The salmon collars were packed in ziplock bags and put next to all the fish bones and other ‘scraps’ leftover from his filleted fish. One of his staff recommended the salmon collars to me as the cheaper alternative to buying his salmon fillets. They told me that it was just as delicious if not more because of all the fat on it. So much fat, it’s almost like having salmon toro!

Get the Right Kind of Salmon

So I came back home that first time with a bag or two of the salmon collars and prepared them as they said—just salt and pepper it then broil. And it was the most delicious thing. This is when I had my epiphany. Salmon can taste so amazing when youget the right kind. And this was the right kind—wild King Salmon. I cannot go back to any store bought salmon anymore (the variety of salmon really counts and King Salmon is truly KING among the salmons).

And Pat sells his salmon collars at the most reasonable price. Would you believe that he charges only $4/lb for these salmon collars? Yes, you heard me right—only $4/lb. These days, when I go to get them, I come back with at least 5-8 lbs each time. I freeze them in bags and go through them in about 2 weeks.

Easy Prep, Intense Flavor

Prepping the salmon collars is so easy. I just cut each salmon collar into three parts—the two side fin parts and I’m left with one small steak piece.

Three Pieces of the Salmon Collar

I lay them all out on a baking tray (wrap the tray in foil for even easier clean up) and salt them with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper on both sides.

Salmon Collars Laid on Baking Tray

If you want them to taste more intense, leave the salt on for about 30 minutes before you broil the salmon. This technique is the Japanese way of cooking fish “shioyaki” style. And it’s really delicious.

I once made this dish for a catered dinner and someone asked me what I had seasoned the fish with. She could not believe that all it was was salt and pepper. It’s the fish, people! If it’s good fish, it tastes so good that you don’t really need anything else. Plus, salt done right can be the most amazing flavor component. You don’t need much of anything else.

Fifteen Minutes and Done

I then turn my oven to broil and set the rack at the highest level, closest to the broiler. Pop in the fish, leave the oven door slightly ajar and set the timer for 7 minutes (please check on yours as different ovens have different broiler intensities—I did this at a friend’s house once and it browned a lot faster). Basically, you want the fish to brown and get some nice charring (not burning!) before flipping them over.

Once the timer beeps, turn fish over and broil for another 6-7 minutes (normally shorter time because fish is warm and oven has gotten hot too) or until it is a nice golden brown with bits of darker charred color.

Broiled Salmon Collars

Remove from oven. Plate up and make a pig of yourself sucking up the succulent fish and all that tasty, oily yumminess!

Broiled Salmon Collars

If you’ve never had salmon collars, you need to make a point to get yourself to your nearest fishmonger and ask them for it. If you’re in the Bay Area, find out which farmer’s market Pat is at that is closest to you. Just don’t buy him out—save some for me! Don’t forget—Wild King Salmon is the way to go. Everything else just doesn’t come close.

Broiled Salmon Collars with Rice and Stir-Fried Veggies

Cheers, Annie

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Hungry for more fish recipes? Click below:

Cioppino Hot Pot Recipe

Sweet and Sour Fried Fish Recipe

Old Bay Blackened Halibut

Fried Sanddabs with Garlic and Oyster Sauce

Wild Salmon Cakes with Kaffir Lime and Ginger

Fast forward several years later to when Annie and I had been living here in the Bay Area a few years. I've always had that cioppino on my mind. One evening, Annie made a huge pot of cioppino for us and a group of friends, using the Tadich Grill Cioppino recipe from Saveur Magazine. Everyone loved it.

Covering the Cost

In fact, our guests loved the cioppino so much, they said that they would gladly pay us to make it again. All that wonderful but expensive seafood made doing this dish at home cost-prohibitive. But if we had some help getting the ingredients, we could do it. What could be better than having someone else cover the cost of the meal?

Enter the Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 program. Each month, Foodbuzz features 24 blogs doing 24 meals in a single 24 hour period. If you are selected as one of the 24 bloggers to present a meal that month, you receive a stipend that will help cover the cost of the meal. Cool beans!

Build a Better Cioppino

When Annie and I were developing our proposal for the meal, we were thinking of incorporating a Chinese New Year theme. Hot pot is a really popular dish among Chinese, especially around Chinese New Year. (In fact, Kian Kho of the excellent Red Cook food blog also did an amazing hot pot dinner for his Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 meal. I guess great minds think alike!)

But I didn't want to do just a regular hot pot. I wanted to give it a San Francisco Bay twist to it. I thought, what's a seafood soup dish that's popular in the San Francisco Bay Area. *ding!* (lightbulb flashes on) Cioppino! Of course!

We could totally do this! It would be great, because we wouldn't have to worry about how much all the seafood was going to cost. In fact, it would be better and healthier to do a cioppino hot pot-style. Why?

Higher in Flavor, Lower in Fat

The original Tadich Grill cioppino recipe calls for all the fish, shrimp and scallops to be dredged in flour and fried in butter and oil. A cup of olive oil and 16 tablespoons of butter, to be exact. Sure, that cioppino would have tons of flavor. But that's an awful lot of fat. And remember, Annie hates frying fish.

Doing this cioppino hot pot-style, there would be no fish frying. Everything gets cooked in the broth, right at the table. The meal would be high in flavor yet lower in fat. Me likes!

Procuring and Preparing the Ingredients

We knew exactly where to go to get our seafood: our favorite fishmonger, Pat from Mission Fresh Fish. Pat has supplied us with fish for several of our recipes, including Pan-Fried Sanddabs, Wild Salmon Cakes, and Ikan Pepes. And he always gives us a good deal.

We gave him a call, told him what we were doing and what we wanted and placed our order. The day of the dinner, we went over to the Saratoga Farmer's Market to pick up our seafood. As soon as we got home, we started prepping.

First, we peeled the large shrimp, leaving the shells on just the last tail section. We took the peeled shrimp shells and boiled them in some water to make a shrimp stock, which we then strained.

Large Shrimp and Cooked Bay Shrimp for Cioppino

Next, we sliced up the halibut fillets into thin slices. We also cleaned the scallops, removing any of the harder muscle. The scallops gave off a lot of liquid, so we had to drain them on paper towels for a while.

Sliced Halibut and Large Scallops for Cioppino

Then, we cleaned the clams and mussels. We tried our best to pick out the dead ones (they don't close tight when you squeeze them). We pulled off the mussel "beards" as well.

Clams and Mussels for Cioppino

Finally, we removed the cooked Dungeness crab bodies from their shells and cleaned off the gills and guts. Then we cut each body section into quarters.

Dungeness Crab Sections for Cioppino

The ingredient list for the cioppino broth is:

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
1 thumb of ginger, peeled and finely minced
2 medium carrots, peeled, trimmed, and chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
1 leek, white part only, trimmed, cleaned, and chopped
1⁄2 small fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped
2 28-oz. cans crushed Italian tomatoes
2 tbsp. tomato paste
4 bay leaves
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried basil
2 pinches cayenne
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

First, the veggies were sauteed in a large stock pot with 8 Tablespoons of butter and 1/2 cup olive oil.

Sauteeing Vegetables for Cioppino Broth

Then Annie added the crushed tomatoes and tomato paste, followed by 6 cups of shrimp broth. Next came the herbs and spices. For an added Asian twist, we put in a stalk of lemongrass that had been lightly crushed. We brought the cioppino broth to a boil, then lowered the heat and simmered, stirring occasionally and adjusting the seasonings to taste.

Adding Crushed Tomatoes to Cioppino Broth

(Oh, one more thing. Remember the crab shells from the Dungeness crab? There's a lot of lovely crab fat and tomalley left in the shell. We scraped all that into the cioppino broth as well. Mmmmm-MM!)

As the dinner hour got closer, Annie heated up a large skillet with a couple Tablespoons of oil and 2 cloves of garlic (minced). She then poured in 2 cups of Sauvignon Blanc and brought that to a boil. Working in batches, she tossed in the clams and mussels, covered the skillet, and let them steam for a few minutes. The clams and mussels that popped open were transferred to a bowl and set aside. (We discarded any that didn't open.)

Steamed Clams for Cioppino

Dinner Time - Let's Eat!

I had set up a portable butane stove in the middle of our dining table. After our Thai-inspired Caesar salad course was cleared, we started cooking the cioppino hot pot. We transferred some of the broth from the large stock pot into a shallower pot, and brought that to a boil over the butane stove. Then we lay down some of the shrimp, fish, scallops, clams, mussels, and finally Dungeness crab sections into the broth. Covered the pot and let it come to a boil again.

Cioppino Hot Pot Boiling

Within a few minutes, the cioppino broth came to a boil. We ladled out all the seafood into individual bowls (one of our guests, Michael from Cooking for Engineers, has a good picture of his bowl of cioppino.) Then, it was time to chow down.

Ladle Full of Cioppino

I could tell that there wasn't as much butter in this version of cioppino compared to the previous versions. But that didn't matter, because the stew was bursting with so many other flavors. From the sweet shrimp, scallops and crab to the firm halibut flesh to the briny clams and mussels, it was perfect.

After everyone finished their first portion, we refilled with more cioppino broth from the stock pot, and started a second batch of seafood boiling. After that second helping, we were feeling pretty full, but pretty good!

Aloha, Nate

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No Need to Go Deep

Truth be told, I don't really like making sweet sour dishes because the meat normally has to be deep fried before the sauce is made. And I'm not a big fan of deep frying. Every time I deep fry, I'm reminded of why I don't like it--my kitchen and whole house gets oily and I tend to get so grossed out from all the oil, that I don't enjoy eating the food. That is not to say I don't like deep-fried foods, I love them (can you say FRIED CHICKEN--Yum!)! I just choose to order them at restaurants and have them do the dirty work for me.

But I've found that when you use fish, especially fish fillets, you don't have to deep fry. Just a coating of seasoned flour and pan frying will suffice! So every so often, I will make sweet and sour fish.

It's So Simple!

And when I do, I try to recreate the sauce that my mom uses to make her sweet and sour dishes. It's actually quite simple--it's really just a combination of tomato ketchup and sweet chilli sauce with a touch of soy sauce and sugar. Add this up with some water and some cornstarch and you're pretty much good to go. The tomato ketchup gives the sweet and sour flavors you need and the sweet chilli sauce adds a little more depth (not really very much heat) to the overall flavor of the sauce. If you don't have sweet chilli sauce, you can also use sriracha to add some heat but you'd have to add a bit more sugar.

As for the vegetables that go into the sauce, you can use almost any hard, crunchy vegetables you have on hand. The basic vegetables I would normally use include diced onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes. If you have them, you can include bell peppers, pineapples, zucchini or just mix and match as you please!

This time around, I cut up some thin slivers of ginger and fried that golden before adding the rest of the vegetables. I did this because I find that ginger goes really well with fish and I happen to have lots of ginger on hand.

On to the recipe...

Sweet and Sour Fish

Ingredients
For the fish:
4 Tbsp vegetable oil
6 4oz halibut fillets (any firm white fish will work, I've used tilapia with great success as well)
1/2 cup cornstarch mixed with 2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp white pepper

For the sauce:
1 inch ginger, thinly sliced
1/4 yellow onion, large diced
1 mini cucumber, or 1/4 English cucumber, large diced
8-10 cherry tomatoes, or 1 globe tomato, large diced
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
4 Tbsp sweet chilli sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2-3/4 cup water
1 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp cornstarch

Method
1. Pat fish fillets dry and coat them with the seasoned cornstarch.
2. To your saute pan, add vegetable oil and heat over medium heat.
3. When oil is shimmering, add fish fillets and pan fry till golden brown on both sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Do not crowd the pan by placing too many fillets in the pan at one time. Transfer to a plate while you prepare the sauce.

Pan-frying fish fillets for sweet sour fish

4. Prepare the sauce: combine the ketchup, sweet chilli sauce, sugar, water, soy sauce and cornstarch and set aside.
5. If your pan still has a lot of oil, remove all but 1 tablespoon from the pan. Throw in the ginger and fry till golden brown over med heat.
6. Add onions and stir-fry over med-high heat for one minute. Onions should still be quite firm. Add the rest of the vegetables you are using and give it a quick stir.

Onions, Tomatoes, and Ginger for Sweet Sour Fish

7. Pour in the sauce and turn heat to med-low. Stir sauce around. The sauce should start to thicken. Taste and adjust seasonings (if not sweet enough, add more sugar, if not sour enough, add more ketchup or white vinegar).

Pouring Sweet Sour Sauce on Vegetables

8. Remove from heat and pour sauce over fish. Serve immediately with rice.

Sweet Sour Fried Fish

Concession: You know how Nate was telling you about the Old Bay blackened halibut in a previous post and how he used his cast iron pan and the fish did not stick at all? Well, he suggested I use the cast iron pan to fry my sweet and sour fish. Of course, I was dubious and chose to ignore his suggestion, going with my not very non-stick pan instead.

And as you can see from the "Pan-Frying Fish Fillets" picture, the fish did not come off perfectly clean. So I concede, he was right (as he gloatingly showed me when he made the blackened halibut right after I was done with this dish). I will not doubt the ability of the cast iron pan from now on.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

If you like this recipe, won't you subscribe (it's free!) to receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or your Inbox?

Hungry for more fish dishes? Click below:

Fried Sanddabs with Garlic and Oyster Sauce

Wild Salmon Cakes with Kaffir Lime and Ginger

Ikan Pepes - Indonesian Spiced Fish

Lomi Lomi Salmon

Grilled Arctic Char

I heated up a couple tablespoons of veggie oil in my cast iron pan over medium-high heat, then lay down the fillets when the oil got hot enough.

Old Bay Blackened Halibut in Cast Iron Skillet

Wait about 4-5 minutes, then flip with a spatula. Cook another 4-5 minutes.

Old Bay Blackened Halibut in Cast Iron Skillet

When the fish felt done, I removed them to a plate to cool. Talk about a quick dinner!

Old Bay Blackened Halibut

Seriously, I think this Old Bay Blackened Halibut recipe is as easy as, or even easier than the Old Bay Blackened Shrimp recipe I did before. The fish came out pretty tasty, with a mild pepper heat and the distinctive celery seed notes of Old Bay. The only thing I would advise is that it is better to cook this outside so you don't end up with a house smelling of fried fish.

A Note About the Cast Iron Skillet

I don't think I've shown us cooking with this cast iron skillet before. I actually got this Lodge brand skillet back in 2007, when they were going for a good deal at Costco. But it hasn't seen as much action in our kitchen as our other non-stick pans. I only have pictures of a pan-fried ribeye, a roast chicken, some popcorn, and the homemade whole-wheat tortillas that I did last year.

Of course, I have been cooking other things with this pan (just not taking pictures!), and carefully following the instructions to season it. Slowly, the cast iron skillet's surface has been getting more and more non-stick.

So now, when I cooked these Old Bay blackened halibut fillets, they did not stick to the pan at all! They got a nice crust, and slid right off the bottom when I had to flip them. And clean-up was easy as well. Just wipe it down with some paper towels and brush out some of the remaining crispy bits.

I'm really happy to have gotten these cast iron skillets, and look forward to years more cooking with them!

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more quick seafood recipes? Click below:

Steamed Shrimp with Ginger and Green Onions

Fried Sanddabs with Garlic and Oyster Sauce

Old Bay Blackened Shrimp

Steamed Egg Tofu with Ground Pork and Shrimp